A Role Playing Games Blog
Random musings
Food at the table (or other designated gaming area) what to do… Ask the readers!
11December 7, 2011
I am a portly fellow, I’ll admit it. Or you may say pleasantly plumpy. Ok I am overweight. I guess it is something that affects some in the gaming community. I know there are people out there who also face this conundrum. There are groups out there, like Fit for Gen Con who are doing something about it…
I have talked about food in games before, but this is a different situation, the master of the Gordopletas© needs to loose weight. And I am not remotely thinking that the junk food I eat once night a week is responsible for my unhealthy eating habits. I need to exercise more, eat more responsibly. But in past experiences, and lets face it many of us have been there, I can pinpoint that I keep my diet for most of the week and then come game night I drink too much soda, eat too much chips and candy.
So I come to you dead reader, how do you do it? What tricks have worked for you? I plan on getting back on the healthy eating wagon and I’d sure like to plan ahead.
My take on “unfinished business”
2December 6, 2011
In his latest post Roberto (aka Sunglar) shared his thoughts about “unfinished business”, campaigns that never came to a proper end. I have to admit I know this all too well. When it comes to finishing campaigns that I’ve started I am terrible. I’ve written about what I call “Game Designer Attention Deficit Disorder” before and as you can imagine I have the same issue when I am running games. Instead of seeing things through to the end I usually switch from game to game, campaign to campaign with random one-shots thrown in.
Luckily my players are very patient with me and haven’t run away yet. Sometimes they share my excitement for the shiny new game I want to try out and so everything is fine, but I often get the nagging feeling that I never actually ran a great campaign. So what do I consider a “great campaign”? It’s the one campaign you remember for many years, that you and your friends always reminisce about when you meet. A friend of mine ran a Rolemaster campaign for us, back when we were still at the university. Even though we met an unfortunate end and the campaign didn’t end as the GM anticipated we had a blast.
So why is it that I can’t seem to see a campaign from start to finish? I think one of the reasons is that while I love to create worlds, characters and rules, my stories are usually not so well thought out. When it comes to adventures I am often sloppy and only my talent at improvising and acting out characters saves the day. The other reason is definitely the aforementioned GM attention deficit disorder that makes me want to run new games every other day.
I recently had some ideas for a fantasy setting I would love to use as a basis for a campaign. One part of me thinks it should go through with it, flesh it out, think about adventure ideas or perhaps turn it into a sandbox game. But another part of me fears that it might be another failure – a game that I start to abandon as soon as the next idea comes along. Of course I could start working on it either way. Even if I never run the game myself, perhaps my notes are useful for someone else.
The end of the year is approaching and this is often a time when people look back on what they did in the year that lies behind them. But you also make plans for the new year. And when it comes to gaming, I am not that happy with how 2011 turned out. I had great plans that fell flat for the most part. That’s why I would love to start something great in 2012. After all if the world is truly ending next year, it’s the last chance I got, isn’t it. 
Unfinished business
0December 2, 2011
I think as a whole we human beings are completists. We want to complete what we began; we want the whole story. We crave to know the conclusion, and when we don’t get closure we often resent it. From famous court cases to cancelled TV series, we just don’t like it when we don’t know the end of the story.
No wonder hardcore fan-folk (and I use the term meaning no disrespect) often take this to the next level when it comes to the things they are passionate about. Be it the TV series they were really invested in and the networked axed, or the endless novel series whose author passed away before completing it. There can be righteous indignation in such occasions.
Lazy Friday Video post: “John Carter of Mars – Full Trailer”
3December 2, 2011
Yes, I know this is quite off-topic, but damn, this movie is looking better and better everytime they throw a few new scraps at us. I loved the book and it looks like the movie will be quite epic, too.
Of course they took some artistic liberties and even before I saw the first footage I was pretty sure that Disney wouldn’t let Dejah Thoris run around half-naked as she did in the book.
By the way, is there actually an “official” Barsoom RPG? I am sure the world would make an interesting background for a roleplaying game. And the planetary romance genre is not as overdone as some other genres out there.
Ask The Stargazer: “What is the one RPG that you have never run, but have always wanted to?”
17December 1, 2011
Today’s question has been asked by a reader who calls himself Lon. And while it’s a perfect question, I am not sure how I should answer that. Let me start by saying that the list of RPGs that I have never run, but always wanted to is probably longer than my arm. Who am I kidding? The list is way longer than both of my arms. 
For many years I have been collecting roleplaying game rulebooks. If I said I had dozens of RPG books this would probably be an understatement. And the number of books I bought on RPGNow over the years is quite impressive. Of course I have not yet read all of those and I will probably never use all of them, but there are a few I really would love to run one day.
Let me list a few of those:
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Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG
I got a copy of this fine game as a review copy from Cubicle 7 a while ago. I haven’t had the time to write a proper review yet, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s an awesome game. The mechanics are pretty nice and the designers managed to grab the essence of the series and put it into their game. Marvelous!
I am a big fan of the new series and I even managed to get my girlfriend fall in love with it, too. Now I need to find a few more players and the time to run that game. -
Shadow, Sword & Spell
For quite some time I wanted to run a Sword & Sorcery game. And if I should ever find the time to run one, I will probably use Rogue Games’ SS&S to run it. The game uses Rogue Games 12° System which I like a lot. That reminds me I should write a review of SS&S at some point in the future. I have to admit I was unsure whether it was ok for me to write one, since my name appears in the credits of several Rogue Games products since I have done some proofreading for them. -
Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein
Dark Harvest is one of the most impressive games I’ve ever read. The setting is extremely awesome and if you are looking for a unique horror game, you should check out this game. Alas the unique setting makes it complicated to find players interested in playing the game. But I totally love it and I am looking forward to all the new stuff coming out in the future. -
Atomic Highway
Since playing Interplay’s Fallout back in the day I love the post-apocalypse genre. And Atomic Highway is one of my favorite pen & paper roleplaying games of said genre. My plans to run a Fallout-inspired game using the AH rules utterly failed but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to run Atomic Highway anymore. But perhaps next time I will use a setting more fitting to the rules. As the name of the game implies vehicles play a significant role. If your vision of a post-apocalyptic world looks much like the Mad Max movies, AH is the perfect game for you. In the Fallout world modern vehicles are almost non-existent, which caused a few issues. But I digress. -
Gamma World
Yes, you read that correctly. Even though I am not too fond of D&D 4th Edition I am quite excited about that game. I have to admit I haven’t picked it up yet, but from what I’ve heard it’s awesome. For some reason I am in the mood for some wacky post-apocalyptic game with anthropomorphic animals and weird mutants with improbable powers. And it seems Gamma World is the perfect remedy for that itch.
But of course this list is far from being exhaustive. I could go on for pages listing all the cool games that I would love to run. My collection is full of exciting games and there are even more out there I haven’t picked up yet. If you ask me, it’s a great time to be a gamer. There are more games out there than ever and the community is more active and vibrant than ever before. Don’t let them tell you everything was better back in the day. I highly doubt it was the case. The only thing that was better was that when we were young, we had a much more free times on our hands we could use for playing RPGs. But I digress.
Now that I have answered Lon’s question let me ask my readers: What is the one RPG that you have never run, but have always wanted to? As always every feedback is appreciated!
By the way, if you have a question you want to ask the Stargazer, send an email to askthestargazer@stargazersworld.com!
Puerto Rico Role Players: spreading our wings… And our horizons!
0November 29, 2011
If you regularly read my posts you’ll have noticed that from time to time I talk about the Puerto Rico Role Players group. Along with writing here in the blog, that group has been a big part of what’s motivated me to become more active in promoting and sharing with others my love for role-playing games. It started out as a Facebook group (back when Facebook had locations by city or region) and has gone through three versions as that social network has changed its platform.
I know there are a lot of people who dislike Facebook, their policies and what not. Some have migrating to other social media like Twitter, Diaspora or Google+, but I’m still there. Somewhere (and I just can’t find the source right now) there was a report that said we Puerto Ricans still predominantly use Facebook over other social media options. So my staying makes sense. I keep in contact with a lot of friends, and there is an active community of my fellow islanders in said service.
Facebook has also served the group well; we went from almost disappearing about three or four years ago to a group with over 370 members. Still there are limitations to what can be done there and we’ve begun to take the first tentative steps into the broader social media landscape.
We have created a Puerto Rico Role Players page in Google+, in an attempt to share information about upcoming activities and other important RPG news with our circle of followers, which is still small but hopefully will grow in the coming days and weeks. We also have a Gmail account for the group, prroleplayers@gmail.com where we can be contacted.
I don’t think I have mentioned it before but we also have a presence on Twitter, @PRroleplayers that account is run by none other than our Boricua in exile Daniel Perez, also known as @Highmoon, who was instrumental in the creation of spaces where gamers in Puerto Rico could communicate and for that we owe him and continue this journey.
We’ll also soon be re-launching a website a fellow Puerto Rico Role Players member created which is undergoing some modifications, so I’ll make sure to write another post when that happens.
Are we leaving Facebook? No! I think it has been, and for the foreseeable future, will remain our main contact point. But now there are other options to reach those Puerto Rican role-playing game fans that may not be in Facebook.
Dear reader, I have one request to make of you… If you know of a role-player from Puerto Rico who may have not heard of us will you be so kind and point them our way? We will appreciate it!
Legend – Help raising money for Child’s Play and get a cool RPG in exchange
0November 28, 2011
Rule of Cool Gaming’s Legend RPG has probably the most generic name a fantasy RPG could have, but it’s actually a pretty interesting product. The rules may look quite familiar at first glance because it’s based on the d20 System SRD. But it’s not just another d20 variant, but a “new and novel system dedicated to cinematic combat and a smoother gameplay experience”.
I have to admit I haven’t had the time to give the rules a closer look, but the rulebook looks really nice. It features a very cool and clear layout with some excellent pieces of art. Creative lead Jacob Kurzer has provided us with a review copy of the game, so expect a full review in the near future, but my initial impression is quite positive.
The game features eight classes like Barbarian, Monk, Paladin and Shaman that can be further customized by the players through choosing different “tracks” along which the characters develop. Each class comes with a number of tracks but there are extra tracks that can be used either to create monstrous characters or to customize your character even further.
But what definitely sets Legend apart from a lot of other games is the fact that all proceeds from the core product will be donated to Child’s Play. And until December 9th Legend is available on a pay-what-you-want basis. Until now the game has raised about $866 to improve the lives of children in hospitals around the world.
The Legend RPG is about 179 pages long and doesn’t come with a fledged-out setting. It definitely worth a look and with your purchase you’re actually helping children in need.
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